The Getty Center (place)

sockpuppet has done a nice job of giving us facts and history re: the Getty. A couple of less serious notes about it...

It looks like Starfleet HQ. Seriously. Driving up along the 405 North it positively looms off on the left, perched on its snake-infested hilltop in a glorious riot of light-colored stone. I swear, it's Starfleet. Especially at night, when there are floodlights on it and the area around it is quite dark.

It was infested with snakes. The hilltop on which it is set was unbuilt, and as a result, all the snakes who'd been pushed out of surrounding developed lowlands had eventually settled up there. There was a massive effort required to deslither the area.

It's in a lousy neighborhood for lunch. The staff of the Getty ended up lobbying hard for facilities for their use atop the mesa, since there wasn't an easy way down and there wasn't anything in the area anyhow. This led to not only some of the eateries up there but the health club facilities, referred to (naturally) as Spa Getty.

It was orginally fragile. The light stone panels referred to above were originally spec-ed not only for the exterior, but for functional surfaces inside the buildings at several locations. These had to be changed hastily before the opening when it was discovered that the travertine stone, while beautiful and a hardy exterior, wasn't up to handling lots of foot and utilitytraffic. It apparently tended to crack (infrequently) and clearly show grubby handprints and the like with all the fidelity and contrast of a freshly-painted white wall (frequently).